


Together

by Akaisha_Loire



Category: Fear the Walking Dead (TV)
Genre: Biting, Blood Drinking, Ghouls, Gore, Inspired by Tokyo Ghoul, M/M, POV Alternating, ghoul!Ottos, ghoul!Troy, ghoul!Walker, mentions of cannibalism, minor depictions of violence
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-01-21
Updated: 2019-01-21
Packaged: 2019-10-13 11:21:12
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,858
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17487182
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Akaisha_Loire/pseuds/Akaisha_Loire
Summary: Troy Otto found the world to be hilarious, and utterly ironic.The one percent of humans left were the prey to the ninety-nine percent of predators.





	Together

**Author's Note:**

> Oh lordy, I've never been so happy to have words come out of me!
> 
> Honestly, watching or having knowledge of Tokyo Ghoul is not necessary to read this fic. I attempt to summarize the world as best as I could with-in the story, but there's quite a few intricacies of the ghoul world that I didn't really have time to add in here. Regardless. I hope you all enjoy!

Troy Otto found the world to be hilarious, and utterly ironic.

How entertaining that humanity spent years, centuries, condemning creatures that survived on the flesh of humans, only for them to be consumed by a disease that drove them mad for the taste of that very flesh. To watch the decay of the world, and the few humans that survived battled each other not knowing the monsters that still lurked in the shadows. Assuming, as humans did, that only one true danger remained in their snowglobe of a world.

The one percent of humans left were the prey to the ninety-nine percent of predators.

Predators like Troy who didn’t delight in the taste of rotting flesh like his weaker counter parts, but the fresh, warm supple flesh of a beating heart, pumping full liquid life through every vein. He loved his brother, he did, but how could one survive on corpses when they were still so many humans left in this world. It was his prerogative to sample the buffet that was the world they lived in now; generously laid out before him. No more hiding behind masks, pretending he was something he wasn’t just for the sake of propriety.

Troy Otto knew he was a monster.

He was more than happy when his father sent him away to the border, because it was his time to play. It was science, as well, as a meal, calculating how fast a human turned, and if they turned depending on what organs were ripped out of them. Troy was a heart man, himself. The lungs, the heart, spleens, and livers were a delicacy, and of course flesh, and muscle. He was never to keen on fat, unlike his father who favored the hearty body to a leaner one. It was almost hysterical to watch the humans, primarily of Mexican origin, cry out in shock as his eyes bled to black, the iris glowing red as his true nature was revealed to them; the creature that went bump in the night.

Their screams were like music to his ears as he methodically cut out the heart, still beating in a man’s chest, occasionally using his teeth for the delightful rip of tendons. He loved the way his militia, primarily human, avoided direct eye contact with him when he feasted, and the ones like him, well, they waited their turn, diving for scraps when he allowed it. It was a very happy system for him in the end of humanity.

Until the Clark family came crashing into his life.

He’d never had maori flesh before. It was a delicacy not openly offered by New Zealand unless you were willing to spend large amounts of money for it. Not only that, law enforcement had crack downs on the import of goods, particularly human organs, trying to find factions, monsters like him who ate it with relish; he was thrilled.

Of course, the maori man had a wife, who smelled particularly delicious, and a daughter who was rather sweet, like an orange, and as luck would have it, they had a son; a Nick. A Nick who was cinnamon and spice, and something so very odd.

They’re a feisty bunch, so unlike the other humans that came through his domain. They fight the biters, the walkers with ease, and stab him in the eye as if it were a game. A game he’s willing to play if it means he gets her, he gets Madison, because he will. He’ll have her in his bed, and when her back is turned he’ll part her breast and rip into her chest, claw his way to her heart and eat it where it lies until the life leaves her.

His only regrets, when he returns home to the ranch, is that the maori man fell from the helicopter, and he’s forever lost the chance to taste something so exotic.

Oh well, he supposes, there’s always Nick Clark.

*

“Ghouls?” Alicia Clark questions, as Gretchen Trimbol addresses the subject. She seems genuinely confused by the inquiry and Troy steps up, with a bright smile, and a firm hand on Gretchen’s shoulder.

“She has quite the imagination,” he says in explanation, laughing it off while Mike stares off to the open fields. Mike, who hasn’t been able to look him in the eye since the day he found out what Troy was. Mike, who seemed to gag everytime Troy walked by despite their near twenty years of friendship. Mike, a Trimbol, who was quickly becoming a problem for Troy.

“I’ve heard of ghouls,” Madison says, taking a seat next to Troy, ordering him down next to Gretchen, playing her hand at a power move with him; he’s wise to it. She wants to assert her dominion, show them all who is pulling Troy’s string, as opposed to the other way around. “Before walkers, ghouls were a major predator. Not so much a problem here in the US, but I’ve heard it’s a rampant issue in Mexico, large parts of Asia, even the UK had a ghoul infestation a couple years back. I assume, the infected eat ghouls in the same way they’d eat humans. They’re no safe then we are.”

How wrong she is, Troy thinks to himself.

“Why have I never heard of these things?” Alicia asks, a tone that suggests she hates not knowing. Troy assumes she was a smart one in her school days, straight As, with a bright college future ahead of her.

“They were kept secret from the general public. You didn’t know it was ghouls, unless you knew what you were looking at,” Troy answers, caught out thanks to Madison. Writing it off as a fantasy was much easier than trying to explain an entire underground community more intricate than an ant farm.

“They’re monsters,” Mike adds, and Troy shoots him a look. “They wear the masks of humans, everyday people, but they eat us, like we’re cattle.”

“So ghouls are monsters for their nature? How do you suppose the cattle see you, Mike?”

Madison puts a stop to the conversation there, steering them towards a more lighthearted subject, something along the lines of planting a floral garden, for lack of anything better to do in the end of the world. Gretchen suggest Alicia join her and some other teens for a ‘prayer circle’ later that evening.

*

He kills the Trimbols; it’s only sensible.

Perhaps, it’s not exactly sensible to make the adults watch as he devors Gretchen head first, but he’s angry, pissed, that they’d turn against him after so many years of loyalty they’d shown to his father. He wants Mike to be last. He wants Mike to watch as he digs out his mother’s eyes, swallowing them down like candy as she scream out in agony, her husband begging for him to stop. Troy will admit, he planned to take pity on Trimbol senior until he shot him in the shoulder, not once, but thrice, attempting to stop him. He’s to old for Troy’s taste, but he takes his head off with one smooth twist, and a snap of his spine, like twisting the lid off a soda.

He takes his time with Mike. Watches him cry, piss himself, before he carefully cuts him open while he attempts to kick and scream and get away. Troy pockets his organs for dessert, purring when he rubs his hands against Mike’s ribcage, swimming in the warm pool of blood, uninfected by the decay of the dead.

It’s the most alive he’s felt in months, and he thanks whoever is listening that the Ranch knows what Walker is, because it’s oh to easy to pawn the feasting off on him.

*

Nick Clark is an anomaly, a puzzle that Troy has to solve.

If his mother, his sister, weren’t so blatantly human, Troy would think Nick is like him, except all signs point to the contrary. He’s just a broken human, so like many of them are. There’s something about him that makes Troy want to hate him, especially with how he protects Luciana, staying by her bed till the day she leaves him, up and goes, as humans are wont to do. He throws himself into rebuilding the burned out house, and joining the militia with a singular goal of keeping his eye on Troy.

There’s something about Nick that just makes Troy want to be friends with him. His first outing with Madison and he wanted to tear the woman’s throat out--a plan that’s still on his to do list. She’d pulled emotions out of him that he’d long since buried, things he’d come to make peace with concerning his own mother and the systematic way she drank herself to death. Allowing her biology to do the job that she couldn’t do herself. Madison brings out the worst in him, and a lesser man, with lesser control would have tore her apart.

The only saving grace of being out with Madison is that she finds out what Walker is, what the Nation are; ghouls. They don’t hide their nature, now that they don’t have to, and while they had been primarily pacifictic before, now, in the new world order, they were willing to wage war against Troy’s father. The fact the woman comes away from the experience knowing about the Nation and not about Troy is a damn miracle; she doesn’t even blink at the Trimbols death, though Troy itches to tell someone about it.

Nick, his first outing with him, is so damn different. He wanted to hunt the boy, tease him, scare him with a well placed gun to his head, because humans feared the life ending weapon. Instead, it’s Nick that surprises him, grabbing him, wrestling him, tearing away years of research with a cackle. It’s fun.

That’s all Troy can think. In all twenty five years of living, he never really could have described fun as anything other than stalking humans, but Nick Clark, is fun to be around. Even more so when he gives Troy a pointed look the day he joins the militia and says, “...the people that killed the Trimbols…” eyeing him like he knows exactly who killed the Trimbols, and knows exactly what Troy is. It makes him itch to take, to violate, to bite the younger man and swim in his blood, but he doesn’t want to kill him, he just wants a taste. Nick Clark makes him all but forget about his ravenous hunger for Madison’s blood.

Troy can’t help but watch him every second of every day, until one day, Nick calls him on it.

They’re alone, or alone as can be when out scouting with the militia. The guys are in the tent, laughing joking, so similar to a camp out just a few nights ago when Nick offered to go kamikaze if need be; Troy wouldn’t let him, but Nick claimed to be ‘suicide proof’. It’s those words ringing in Troy’s head as he watches Nick, sat alone from the rest of the group, moving his fingers along the bread and chicken and canned beans, poking at it, staring out into the vast dessert before them, with not a light insight save for the lanterns of the tent.

Coop has recresitioned a bottle of Jack from Troy’s father, and shares it with the group, claiming they need one night to just have a bit of fun with no looming threat. Troy walks out to Nick, sitting beside him, looking towards where he’s looking, seeing nothing, hearing nothing. “It’s quiet,” Nick says.

“Yep,” Troy agrees.

“Walker is going to start a war if we don’t do something soon.”

“Yep,” Troy nods, sipping his coffee, sighing at the smooth rich flavor that dances on his tongue, liking the relief from the putrid taste of vomit when he’s forced to purge his body of the human food he consumes to play at normality.

Nick looks at him, as if Troy has gone insane, as if war isn’t a big deal. Funny thing is, Troy has lived in war his whole life. True, he lived in primary isolation on the ranch, but that didn’t stop officers from coming knocking, looking. That didn’t stop the wars over territory and food, and who had the right to hunt where. There was an entire world that had existed around humans all along and they were blind to it; Troy was immune to it.

“You honestly don’t care, do you?”

“Haven’t for a long time, Nicky,” he says, and Nick sighs, putting down his plate. “Not hungry?”

“No,” Nick grumbles. “You know, my sister’s been fucking your brother.”

Troy laughs, tossing his head back, “Oh, I know.”

He did know. They argued about it, loudly. He didn’t understand the point of Jake getting close to the girl unless he intended to eat her, yet, here he was getting close to Nick without any intention of eating him. A few bites, perhaps, a nibble here and there, but he doesn’t think he could ever bring himself to end his life.

Now that is irony.

“You’ve been watching me,” Nick adds.

“Yep,” Troy admits.

The conversation just stops after that, and Troy half expects an invitation into Nick’s bed by the way he eyes him but it never comes. They sit there, in silence, listening to the men behind them laugh and party like the world hasn’t ended.

It’s nice.

*

Troy knows it was the Clarks. Walker, the Nation, they wouldn’t have used human tools to end Jeremiah’s life. He wants to be mad at someone, wants to be angry, but he’s hated Jeremiah for so long, because there was never love in his heart for his younger son. They say, ghouls are heartless, and Jeremiah was one of those ghouls; Troy simultaneously mourns and celebrates his late father’s death.

“I killed him,” Nick says, and Troy didn’t need to hear it.

In fact, it makes him angry to hear it. For a brief moment, that part of him that is a child, that clung to Jeremiah in fear, rears its ugly head and he’s angry. He wants to hurt, and be hurt, and he wants someone to lash out at. For one fleeting moment, he wants to shove the spine of his tails into Nick’s chest and watch the life blind from his eyes. But then, he remembers, Nick might be the only person on the ranch that gives a damn about him. Not out of obligation, like Jake does, but out of actual affection, and it keeps him in check, long enough to fall to his knees and let tears he swore he’d never shed for his father, fall.

*

“This is what the Ottos are!” Walker declares to the entirety of the ranch, the Nation, as Troy pulls at the chains binding him, digging into his wrists, carving their way down to his bone. They’re drilled into the ground, firm, with enough give for him to climb to his feet before pulling him back down from exertion; well planned in execution.

He’s not surprised Walker’s pulled this. Not surprised he’d have someone drug the coffee when Troy wasn’t around because Madison was naive and she trusted that they could co-exist with the Nation. He’s not surprised he’s brought every human to stand and gawk at him as he’s forced to shift into his true nation, screaming to get at Walker, shouting every expletive possible. Forcing to shift was horribly painful, especially when you’re appendages were being forced to unfold from your body, and you were to weakened to reel them back in. He wants to literally wipe the smug victory from Walker’s face, and cannibalize, even if ghoul flesh was not his definition of a Sunday brunch.

There’s screaming, panic, demands to kill him now where’s he’s chained. He can even see Alicia take a hesitant step to the right of Jake, putting just a bit of space between her and his human loving brother. That’s true human nature, they’re more afraid of intelligent predators then they are of the millions of mindless hoard of human eating predators.

“It’s enough! Stop!” It’s Nick that shouts for it to end, and Troy can’t help but look at him. Madison looks shocked, at herself, that she didn’t say something first. “He hasn’t hurt anyone on this ranch.”

“What about the Trimbols?!” someone in the back shouts, and Troy hopes they lock their doors at night or else he’s going to show them what kind of monster he is.

Even without looking, Troy can practically hear Jake thinking about the border, and how Troy was basically having his share of human flesh whenever he wanted it, but Walker doesn’t know about that, and anybody that does is already dead. Not even Nick witnessed him feasting at the border; nobody knew.

“Yeah!” someone else shouts. “Troy had to have done that! He tore them apart!”

“So that makes this right?!” Nick rebuts, walking to Troy, kneeling down to the chains linking him, looking for a way to get them off.

“It’s justice!” argues the first man, and Troy is really going to tear his eyes out now.

“Fuck! You all sit here and claim two wrongs don’t make a right and then want to vilify Troy for acting on nature. That’s what it is, isn’t it? You don’t call the slaughter of cows, or pigs, or breaking a chicken’s neck for meat, murder, do you? You eat the resources offered to you, cut off the feet and pickle them. It’s only a problem when you’re the bottom of the food chain, isn’t it?” Nick argues and now Madison is stepping forward.

“Nick, that’s enough.”

“If he’s with the Ottos, he should go too! Exile them all!” someone shouts and there’s cheers of agreements. Ghouls that can’t contain themselves like Saint Walker, shouldn’t be around the humans fighting so hard for survival.

“Kill them all!” another shouts, and even more cheers for that go through the gathered people.

“We sit here, struggling for things like water, and food, and we’re an open buffet to the likes of him. He sits there, pretending to be human, eating food, then what? Throwing it back up? Wasting our little precious resources so we didn’t find out about him! He’s a monster! We should kill him now!” Troy knows that voice, it’s Andrew, someone who worked with his father for the past five years, and now looks at Troy with nothing but disgust; the same Mike had when he saw Troy eating one of the dead before they turned. “He’s no better than the dead.”

They argued, and that worked for Troy.

As they had their petty disagreements, his strength returned, his metabolism working the drugs out of his system. He’d been eating well for the past month, which worked in his favor as his tails began to respond to him, moving slowly till he could reach around and grab Nick, pulling him back with one firm tail around his waist, and one around his throat. The crowd at large screams, horror movie like so that it almost sound like a stock clip to his ears, while a few men ran forward, guns at the ready, as if that would stop him.

“Don’t!” both Madison and Alicia called, reaching out to Nick, who really, was the calmest in the situation.

“Give me a reason,” Troy smiled, the tip of his tail, lovingly stroking Nick’s cheek, soft and pliant before he hardened it to a deadly point, moving it to Nick’s temple. “One little push, and boom, over,” he warns them, moving the tip of his tail closer and closer till it pressed into the flesh of Nick’s skull, drawing a thin line of blood. He could smell it, so close, all cinnamon, and spice, and heady, a beacon to him, despite his need not to feed; he wanted a taste.

“Let him go Troy,” Madison threatened, a gun to the back of his head, cocking menacingly. He knew she’d do it too, all he had to do was give her a reason.

“Not yet,” he hummed, the tail around Nick’s waist releasing to reach down and rip the chain from his left arm, freeing it, giving him the ability to reach over and rip the chains from his right. Madison didn’t give him a chance to even breath before the bullet was living the chamber, lodging itself in the back of his head, pushing against his accelerated healing, his world going black.

* * *

 

Nick was pissed, beyond pissed. He knew his mother liked to play her games, and for someone that once was a guidance counselor she wasn’t very good at actually offering actual guidance. “I did it for us! Me, Alicia, the Ranch, you,” she tried to argue, and Nick had it.

He kicked the shelf that housed the bags of grain, turning a glare on her. “No, not for me!”

“Nick..” He could hear the fear, smell it on her as it began to slowly permeate the air.

“You admire Walker for his strength, his will to only eat the dead, how he works so hard towards unity in a new world. You let Jake walk free because Alicia likes him, he’ll never hurt her, right?”

“I made a choice, Nick, Troy left us with no choice!”

“And me? What If I leave you with no choice? You’ll shoot me? Lock me in that box with Troy till we both lose our minds? Am I a monster, mom? Is that how you’ve always seen me?” he seethed, pacing back and forth. He knew the truth, he’d always known the truth, yet, the harsh reality of his demands made his heart clench. “Ever since the accident…”

“Nick,” she cut in, sharply, standing up from her stool. “It’s enough! You’re not Troy!”

“But I’m like him, aren’t I? That’s what scares you,” he said with finality, stomping up and out of the store house, towards the main Otto home that was now his home; Madison’s home. His mind was racing, processing everything at a thousand miles a minute. Had his mother told him not to drink the coffee that morning, he very well could have been chained up next to Troy. Pulled prone, revealed as nothing more than a monster for the world to see. Because that what his mother saw him as, ever since that day. She saw him as a monster, even if she couldn’t believe the words out loud and he was forced to reconcile the fact that she kept him close out of guilt, not love.

Now he was here in a house she requisitioned, sleeping in Troy’s bedroom while the man in question was left to scream himself hoarse in a metal box designed specifically to hold ghouls; a box he couldn’t get out of no matter how much he thrashed. Which put Nick, on the balcony, forced to watch that putrid burgundy rust bitten box, day in and day out, while his mom tried to promote herself mayor of the ranch with Walker, as if peace had been obtained. In Nick’s mind, they were only one step away from placing a ‘don’t feed the animal’ sign on Troy’s coffin and leaving him to die; Nick would be one step behind him, once they decided he couldn’t be trusted either.

“You like him, don’t you?” Alicia asked, one morning when she found him sitting out on the porch, watching the box again. She walks out, casual as anything, leaning next to him on the rails, taking a cigarette that he so desperately wanted to smoke but couldn’t stomach. He thought, perhaps his bad habits were rubbing off on her.

Three days had passed since Troy had gone in, and all three days, Alicia had found him here watching, without saying a word; she hadn’t spared a word for her brother either.

“I killed Jeremiah--”

“Stop,” she said, hand up, shaking her head, eyes closing as she likely recalled his act of stupidity, standing in front of Troy, protecting him, resulting in nothing more than tails around his throat and a bullet in Troy’s head. “You don’t owe him anything, Nick. You like him, you share the same self destruction.”

“We share more than you think,” Nick sighs, turning to look at the box that had fallen still, the air silent as Troy likely fell asleep, or gave up, for now at trying to get out. Alicia shifted her weight, leaning against the banister of the porch railing, eyebrow raised in a way that reminded him of their dad. Nick took a seat in the wooden chair on the deck, made by the hands of the man he murdered. He closed his eyes, turning his head towards the sun, delighting in it’s warmth. “You were young, when it happened, three, I think and you were at home with dad.”

Alicia hummed, nodding, as if she could cognitively remember details that far back. Her hand made an aborted notion for him to go on with his story.

“Mom, she said she’d tell you eventually, probably after you turned 18, knowing her and, shit, I barely remember it most of the days. I just remember it being dad’s birthday, or close to dad’s birthday and mom asked if i wanted to go pick out a cake, and I remember her saying we had to be quiet. To keep it a secret. I remember I wanted to get dad something sports themed, baseball, or soccer.”

“Dad loved the Dodgers,” she nods, smiling in reminiscence.

“Yeah,” he smiled. “So, we were ‘sneaking’ out. Dad had you, and mom told him we’d be right back, and I remember we were going to Albertsons, the one next to Party City, and mom said we could pick up some balloons, make it special for dad since he was thirty now, and getting old.”

“Sounds like mom,” she agrees. “Why do I get the feeling you’re about to say you were in a car accident or something happened at the store?”

“Because we were in an accident. It’s not like it was dark or raining or any of that cliche shit. Hell, I think it was morning, or afternoon, I remember the sun being up and mom talking about grilling burgers for dinner. We were crossing the intersection, you know, commonwealth and fremont?”

“You remember the street?” Alicia asks incredulously.

“No,” he scoffs. “I remember the 7-11, figured out the street when I was older. Anyways, mom had a green, and last thing I remember was her yelling my name and throwing her arm across me to try and take the brunt of the airbag or pull me away from the door. Next thing I have memories of is waking up in the hospital and dad was crying and angry talking at mom. I don’t remember much of what they said, I just remember he was mad and she was mad and you were crying.”

“So, you were in a car accident. On top of the drugs, it’s suddenly making sense why mom has tried to be a smother for so many years,” she deduces.

“Well, it’s not just the car accident that drove a wedge between mom and dad, it’s what happened after,” he sighs, running a hand through his hair, regretting cutting it for the moment, wishing he had long locks to tug on, just for lack of anything to do with his hands. “You see, it was a truck that hit us, a U Haul or something like that trying to beat the light before it turned and rammed us between me and the backseat. Mom broke her arm trying to protect me from the impact, and we were hit a second time when the truck sent us into another oncoming car. It was a fucking mess according to the news story on the accident.”

“Okay, you should have died but you didn’t, got it,” Alicia follows and Nick shakes his head.

“I didn’t die because of some miraculous intervention divine bullshit happened. I didn’t die because of the cargo the U-haul was carrying, the reason it was trying not to get caught at the light. They were a ghoul transporter, from Mexico. They smuggled ghouls from the border, through San Diego, Los Angeles, San Francisco, wherever they needed, that was what he did. The force of the wreck forced the truck on it’s side, and three kids, ghoul kids, were killed in the impact.”

“Nick…”

“My organs, for the most part, were pretty much okay, but bruised, save for a couple vital ones and I was dying fast, at least, that’s what dad told me after the accident. The doctor knew exactly what he was doing when he asked dad about the kid that was a match to me, but dad, he didn’t know what he was agreeing too. This doctor, later, got arrested for human experimentation, as in, he implanted ghoul organs into human bodies to see how the body would take.”

“Nick, are you telling me you have ghoul organs inside you?”

Nick nodded. “Yeah, two of them. My liver, and a kidney were both damaged by the impact, at least, that’s what the doctor told dad. Fuck, it was probably just a lie to use me to see if it’d work. The kid was my age, mom and dad were killed crossing from Tijuana and none of the other travelers wanted to step up and claim him.”

“Now I get it,” she says, sighing, stepping close enough to take his hand. “You have parts of them inside you, so you can’t help but sympathize with ghouls because a ghoul saved your life.”

“Licia, you don’t really get it, and I can’t blame you, because the shit that was done to me,” he sighs, pulling at his hair, squeezing her hand still in his. “There’s not a manual to this shit. All I know is that after the surgery I couldn’t eat jello, or bread, or drink the juice the hospital gave me. McDonalds made me throw up and even dad’s chili tasted awful..”

“You loved dad’s chili.”

“I know! That was the problem. I came back from the hospital and everything was different and we figured it out, and fuck, I’ll never forget the day because Dad was convinced all we needed was a good barbecue day. He and mom got out the kiddie pool for us, and we were going to have that party that dad didn’t get to have, and everything was going to be great. I remember dad saying it with so much emphasis and patting me on the head when he did. I remember feeling hungry, always hungry, and mom was convinced all I needed was a good ground beef burger. Then, you came outta of the house, in your bathing suit..it was on backwards because you dressed yourself and mom was laughing, and you came running and you slipped on the concrete porch and scratched your hands. You were bleeding and I…..I went for you.”

“You went for me?”

“I tried to eat you. I remember it so fucking clearly because dad was the one that grabbed me, and I bit into his arm and they had to pull me off like a rapid fucking dog, and you were scared and screaming and reaching for me and saying my name…”

“Nick, you’re not..?” she whispered, looking at him, eyes wide.

He titled his head, letting his eye bleed over to black, the iris glowing red as he peered at his sister, no longer a toddler wanting to hug her crying brother. This young woman looked torn between making a run for it, and lunging for him, to never let him go. “Dad was the one that found a doctor. A ghoul doctor, who never had to deal with a one-eyed ghoul before but taught me like any other ghoul child. Mom was against it, one hundred percent, mainly because, if I wasn’t going to be a hunter, they could buy food for me through a shop in Chinatown, or this other place in East LA that collected victims of suicides, prison cast-offs, the occasional donation…”

“Donations? Like people that donated their body to be eaten?” she asked, and he could hear her gaging at the thought.

“People that had known ghouls or loved them, yeah, and unfortunately, not only was the shit not cheap, it was also illegal under California law to buy or sell it, which never sat good with mom. But what options did they have? If I didn’t eat that way, the chance I could eat one of you in hunger was high, so they did what they had to.”

“Nick, is that why dad…?”

“No. Dad told me he fought hard as he could, and him and mom were always arguing and I don't know, Licia, it was just a mess. I think, dad’s accident would have happened one way or another, whether I was this or not.”

“But you have a heroin addiction!” she argued, trying to find reasoning behind what she was being told. “Troy healed so fast from being shot, would the drugs just burn off?”

“A few drops of human blood in good heroin is about the most amazing high I’ve ever experienced. Its intravenous and in high enough doses..,” he beamed; she was not amused. “Glo, she thought I was fun when I was at my highest. Somewhere between high and hungry, vicious, and laughing. She always offered her blood, then when Cal found out, he was willing to charge me a premium to get ghoul grade heroin.”

Alicia slid to the porch with an oomph, putting her head into her hands, knees to her chest as she tried to process the onslaught of information. “You’re a ghoul.”

“Yeah.”

“Troy, and Jake, they’re ghouls.”

“Yeah, but they were born as ghouls. Normally, ghouls are born, hence, why I’m essentially a freak to both humans and ghouls,” Nick shrugged.

“You eat humans. You’ve been eating humans since you were a kid?”

“Well, yeah. I only really need to eat once or twice a month, but we had to keep the rouse up for you, and eating human food weakens the body so I had to throw up, then eat small bits at a time. Glo used to buy me meat when we were together, so at the very least I saved mom that travesty.”

“And you have tails? Like Troy.”

“No,” Nick said. “Ghouls don’t all have tails. Some have wings, some have these scale arm appendages, it's fucking weird. So every ghoul is different.”

“And you have…”

“Wings. The little boy had wings, and I got his wings when they did the transplant.”

“You’re a ghoul, and you have wings, and mom just wasn’t going to share this shit,” she said, eyes narrowed on the wall, as if it had personally offended her.

“Maybe? Probably not, if she could keep it from you. Mom can’t say it, but she hates the ghoul world, she hates the masks, the pomp, the circumstance, the bars she found me at when I was fifteen and could just go have a drink without anyone looking at me. She hates me for being this, she just can’t say it.”

“Nick, I’m sure she doesn’t hate you, she’s just scared,” Alicia reasoned. “Admittedly, I’m a little scared right now.”

“But you’re don’t bullshit, Licia, you’ll tell me straight that you’re afraid. I get it, I was fucking terrified of myself. Some days I still am..” he confessed, opening his eyes, glancing out towards Troy’s prison once again.

“So then,” she said, taking a deep breath, holding it in, then letting it out slowly. One. Two. Three. “What are you going to do?”

“Fuck If I know.”

“Fuck if you know,” she repeated, smiling, as if she had all the knowledge in the world now.

*

The inspiration strikes in the dead of night. He’ll just get Troy out and leave, it’ll be that simple. Walker can’t complain if they’re not here, nor can the rest of the ranch. The problem is Troy’s hot streak. He’ll be angry, weakened, and likely to kill every single person on the ranch as soon as Nick let’s him out, which would be a problem.

Realistically, he only has about two seconds to get him out before the entire ranch is alerted and on him like a swarm of angry bees. Luckily, a suspicious backpack shows up in the living room of the Otto house, packed full with supplies, enough for two for at least two months. It’s just sitting on the couch when he comes down, no note attached, just there, waiting for him. Like tidbits of food in Alice in Wonderland, exclaiming: Eat me!

Nick can’t help but smile, feeling as if this was Alicia’s doing; helping him get Troy out while he can.

He takes the pack and shoulders it, heading out to the box, staring it down in the matter of seconds it takes him to cross the field; eyeing the padlock that kept Troy inside. There’s a slit at the top, from which Troy peers out, eyes black, red glowing in the dark of the night, veins at the side more pronounced than usual in his hunger. Nick reaches back, pulling out a paper bag of meat, pushing it through with a shush. “Eat that, I don’t want you massacring the ranch the second I let you out.”

“Oh, I plan to on principle,” Troy coughs, the sounds of him eating sloppy and wet as he devours his first meal in days.

“Troy, we don’t have time for your vendetta shit. I let you out, and we gotta go.”

“We?” he hacks, and Nick can see the glowing purples and reds of Troy’s tails, see one slither by the opening as it wraps protectively around Troy’s body. “You coming with me, Nicky? Not afraid?”

Nick pulls on the padlock. Embarrassingly, it takes three solid tugs for him to get it off, his strength depleted by the reduced feedings his mom had him on to keep the ranch from catching wise. Once it’s off, he opens the door, looking to the haggard mess of Troy on the floor, the man looking up at him, glowing eyes widening in the dark of the night.

“Nicky,” he awes, as if he’s seen God himself appear before him. Then he’s lunging, forcing Nick to the ground, pulling, ripping, at the bag, the shirt, teeth poised on his shoulder before he’s biting down, ripping into Nick with gentle precision.

Nick, for his part, holds back the moan that attempts to escape before he feels Troy’s tongue move over the closing wound, drinking at his blood as if it’s the last meal he’ll ever have and Nick is lost in the euphoria of it. He can’t stop his body from arching up into Troy’s, his mouth opening in a gasp as Troy bites again to reopen the wound, drinking more, and all Nick feels is spine tingling pleasure racing from his head to his toes. It feels like he’s about to break out of his own body at any second, and resolutely he decides Troy biting him is better than any sex he’s ever had.

He’d heard that ghouls biting each other was an intimate experience, but this was so much more than he expected. This made him feel like every neuron in his brain was rapid firing all at the same time and wouldn’t be stopping for anything short of death. He wants to claw at Troy, rip, bite him, taste him, feel more of the liquid hot arousal emanating between them, but Troy stops him with a mouth full of Nick’s own blood, pressed to his lips, letting him drink himself on Troy’s lips, making him chase the flavor that is somehow ghoul and human mixed into one dangerous cocktail. “Bite,” is the only word Nick can manage and Troy laughs. Nick manages to nick Troy’s tongue with his teeth, his hands reaching up, yanking him back down for another exchange of tongues, chasing blood. A delicate fiendish dance.

“Not yet, Nicky,” he whispers, extracting himself slowly, tongue laving the dribble of blood from Nick’s chin. “Think you said we need to go.”

“Go?” Nick asks, the haze on his brain slowly lifting as he came back to himself, trying to piece together just where the hell he was at the moment. To feel something other than the throb of his arousal inside his own pants that weeps, even as it aches. Something about Troy, and ghouls, and escaping, nothing more coherent than that, drowned by a voice singing, bite, and blood, sex, on repeat.

“Go,” Troy laughs, standing up, reaching for Nick’s hands, pulling him to his feet. “We’ll go, Nicky. Together.”

“Together,” Nick hears himself repeat.

He can’t exactly see passed the blood induced high, but at the moment he can’t find it in himself to care, because wherever Troy was leading him, they were going together.

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you for reading!~
> 
> Would you guys like to see more? Nick's childhood? Where Nick and Troy go after this? Let me know and I just might make it happen!
> 
> Again, all kudos and comments are super appreciated!


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